What is your next adventure?

I’ll be taking a month or two off to rest and set up logistics for my full-time job I’ll be starting in LA, at Boeing. I'll be a service engineer, working in their avionics and flight controls group. I’ll be working with different airliners to help solve their technical issues that go above their everyday maintenance engineering capabilities.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

I have had a lot of real-world experience from past internships and from research projects at Georgia Tech, so I'm looking forward to continuing to add experiences in the same domain. I grew up and went to undergrad in Ohio, so I’m looking forward to living on the west coast and getting a change of scenery.  

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

I have been fortunate to have internships dating back to high school starting off at the Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. During undergrad, I interned at Northrop Grumman and Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the latter where I learned how the business unit ran, specifically within the service engineering division. I also interned at Boeing Space and Launch where I worked on the actuation and deployment team.

At Tech, I was able to work in the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL) on sponsored research projects with the FAA, NASA, and the Georgia Tech Police Department (GTPD). With the FAA project, we worked on simulating supersonic aircraft data to look at how much noise new models could potentially produce at Mach 1.8. The NASA research was an electrified propulsion project to compare the current FAA regulations and identify any physical and functional gaps in improving the efficiency and safety for 2030 aircraft fleet. We analyzed the impact of carbon emissions and fuel burn and how electric propulsion would benefit a change in technology. For the GTPD project, we worked on their existing legacy technology platform and identified a methodology in which model-based systems engineering (MBSE) techniques can be used to allow stakeholders to quickly assess technology insertions and/or replacements into their technology platform.    

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

Researching in the ASDL during the pandemic allowed me to experience the rigor and the skills needed to be successful in aerospace. Though it was mostly remote, it still allowed me to push myself and prepared me to join the workforce. On top of that, the skill sets I learned from class and techniques learned in the lab have been really helpful and built my confidence.

I feel like no matter where I work I'll always be a valuable asset to the organization, team, or company because I’ve learned how to really look at a problem and boil it down to a requirements-level to where I can start making realistic ways to solve the problem. I think just my mindset has changed as an engineer coming to Georgia Tech, and it's still evolving.

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?

First off, I would say, that everyone’s path is different, your path will be unique and no two paths are exactly the same. With that in mind, I would tell them to put their goals in concrete and their steps in the sand. Sand is compact and you might have to go in and change something around or you may need to have flexibility in your plan. I think it's important to have realistic goals and make sure you are open to opportunities because they will likely come your way, so don’t be afraid to take some calculated risks.  For every opportunity that you don't take someone else will, so try and take chances.